Dominique Pelicot, who drugged and facilitated the rape of his ex-wife Gisèle Pelicot over nearly a decade, has testified that a man appealing his conviction knew she was sedated and came to their home deliberately to abuse her. Husamettin Dogan, 44, is seeking to overturn his conviction for raping Gisèle Pelicot while she was unconscious in June 2019.
Pelicot told the Nîmes appeals court he met Dogan on a chatroom called “against her knowledge” and explained by phone that he was looking for someone to abuse his wife after putting her to sleep. “He had that information from the start,” Pelicot said. Dogan, an unemployed builder, arrived around midnight after driving about an hour from another village.
Pelicot said he gave Dogan specific instructions because Gisèle was drugged and not to be woken, including no tobacco, no scent, and that the act would be filmed. “All these things left him in no doubt of her state,” Pelicot said. Dogan stayed for about two hours and asked Pelicot to lift his wife’s leg and adjust her head because she could not move.
Dogan, one of 51 men convicted in the mass rape case, was sentenced to nine years. He is the only one appealing, telling the court, “I never intended to rape that lady.” Pelicot denied Dogan’s claim that he described it as a game. Gisèle Pelicot attended the hearing with her son, Florian.
